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Cliff Bleszinski

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Cliff Bleszinski (/bləˈzɪnski/; born February 12, 1975), popularly known as CliffyB,[2] is an American video game designer, known for his work on the Unreal and Gears of War series while at Epic Games.[5] After leaving Epic in 2012, he co-founded Boss Key Productions in 2014 which closed in 2018 after the commercial failure of the multiplayer shooter LawBreakers. Since Boss Key's closure, Bleszinski has spent his time with theater and writing.

Cliff Bleszinski
Bleszinski presenting at the 2016 Game Developers Conference
Born (1975-02-12) February 12, 1975 (age 49)[1][2]
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.[2]
Other namesCliffyB, Dude Huge[3]
OccupationGame designer
Spouse
Lauren Bleszinski
​
(m. 2012)​
[4]

Career

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Bleszinski's first game was The Palace of Deceit,[6] an adventure title he started at the age of 15.[7] Programmed in Visual Basic, its second version came out when he was 16.[7]

Epic Games (1992–2012)

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Bleszinski got his start at Epic Games in 1992, after submitting his game Dare to Dream to the company's CEO, Tim Sweeney.[2][8] Though Dare to Dream did not achieve a great success,[8] it led Bleszinski to work on Jazz Jackrabbit, a platformer co-developed by demoscene coder Arjan Brussee.[8][9] The title, which came out in 1994, became Epic's biggest selling game at the time, earning him enough money to buy his first apartment and car.[8][10] It was also around this time that he joined Sweeney and James Schmalz on what would become Unreal,[11] which received a follow-up, Unreal Tournament,[12] and expanded into a series of games.

In addition to his work on the Unreal series, Bleszinski served as creative consultant on Rune,[13] and as lead designer on the first three installments of the Gears of War franchise, which has sold over 22 million copies and earned over one billion in revenue as of January 2014.[14] Gears of War evolved out of the development of what was going to be a game called Unreal Warfare.[15] As Bleszinski explained in a speech at GDC 2007 entitled "Designing Gears of War: Iteration Wins," the game started out as another first-person shooter in the Unreal universe.[16] Over time, however, influenced by the cover mechanic in Namco's 2003 game Kill Switch and the third-person Resident Evil 4, Unreal Warfare became the game known as Gears of War.[17] In 2009, he was chosen by IGN as one of the top 100 game creators of all time.[18]

 
Bleszinski at the Gears of War launch event at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, 2006

After 20 years with the company, Cliff announced his departure from Epic Games on October 3, 2012, saying he had been making video games since he was a teen and wanted to take a break.[19][20] According to a 2015 interview, his original intention was to retire permanently. "I honestly thought I was done... It was a combination of gamers feeling jaded, as well as working with some very talented people who were also very jaded," Bleszinski told Destructoid. "I could pitch the most amazing idea to anybody back when I was at Epic toward the end, and they'd be like 'I don't buy it,'" he added.[21]

Boss Key Productions (2014–2018)

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On June 30, 2014, Cliff announced on Twitter that he was "coming out of retirement to make video games again" and would be unveiling his next project in the next week.[22] The new game, a free-to-play, PC-focused arena shooter code-named BlueStreak, would be published by Nexon and developed by his new studio, Boss Key Productions, which he co-founded with Brussee the same year.[23][24] A year later, Bleszinski revealed that the arena shooter would be called LawBreakers.[25]

In May 2016, he joined the board of advisers for Fig, a mixed crowdfunding/investment platform for video games.[26]

On May 14, 2018, Bleszinski announced the dissolution of Boss Key Productions, citing lackluster sales.[27]

Later career (2018–present)

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After the closure of Boss Key, Bleszinski has gotten involved with theater production. He invested and co-produced Hadestown, and was similarly involved with a revival of Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune.[28] He has also expressed interest in returning to the Gears of War series as an adviser.[29]

His memoir, Control Freak: My Epic Adventure Making Video Games, was published in November 2022 by Simon & Schuster.[30]

In April 2023, Bleszinski announced that he was writing a comic book series titled Scrapper in collaboration with Alex De Campi, with illustrations by Sandy Jarrell. Its first issue will be released on July 19 by Image Comics.[31]

Personal life

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Cliff is married to Lauren Bleszinski (née Berggren), a former professional gamer and id Software employee.[32] Previously, he was married to a woman named Darcy.[13] One of his brothers[a] is Tyler Bleszinski, the founder of Polygon sister site SB Nation.[33] Their father, who died when Cliff was 15,[34] was an engineer for Polaroid.[2] The nickname "CliffyB" was given to him derogatorily by "some jock kid" when he was a shy teenager; he then took it and developed a tougher persona around it.[2] However, in 2008 he expressed a desire to retire the moniker, saying it's "time to grow up a bit".[35]

In 1987, Bleszinski got a Nintendo Entertainment System for Christmas, which turned him into a huge video game fan. "My friends nicknamed me 'Nintendo Boy' because my entire life revolved around my NES. I was eating Nintendo cereal, wearing Nintendo clothing. My dream job was to work for Nintendo. I was pretty inseparable from my NES," said Bleszinski. He said his favorite NES game of all time is Zanac.[36]

In 1988, at 13, Cliff appeared in the first issue of Nintendo Power for earning the high score of 9,999,950 in Super Mario Bros..[2][37] Regarding the achievement, he commented in a 2017 interview with Rolling Stone "that was probably one of the moments when I realized, deep-down and subconsciously, I wanted to be a 'name' in this business of video games."[38] He also went to the Nintendo World Championships when he was 15, coming in second in Massachusetts.[39]

In 1998, Bleszinski rose to fame in the Internet when he held a contest inviting visitors of his website to scan their cats on flatbed scanners and submit the photos for judging.[40]

In 2000, PC Gamer featured Bleszinski in the cover of its November issue, calling him one of the "Next Game Gods."[13] Wired magazine awarded him a Rave Award in 2007 for his work on Gears of War.[41] Shortly before the release of its sequel, Bleszinski was profiled in 2008 by Tom Bissell of The New Yorker in an article titled The Grammar of Fun.[2] On April 12, 2010, he appeared on NBC's Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, where he showed the debut trailer for Gears of War 3 and cited Space Invaders as the game that initially inspired him.[42][43]

Bleszinski has opened two bars in Raleigh, North Carolina, the first one in 2014 called The Station,[44] followed by The Raleigh Beer Garden in 2015.[45]

Credits

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Bleszinski at PAX Prime 2012

Video games

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Filmography

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Books

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  • Cliff Bleszinski, Jerry O'Flaherty & Eric S. Nylund (2006). Destroyed Beauty: An Inside Look at Gears of War. Epic Games.
  • Cliff Bleszinski, Joshua Ortega & Rod Fergusson (2008). Beneath the Surface: An Inside Look at Gears of War 2. Epic Games.
  • Cliff Bleszinski (2022). Control Freak: My Epic Adventure Making Video Games. Simon & Schuster.

Notes

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  1. ^ His other brother is Greg Bleszinski.[2]

References

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  1. ^ @therealcliffyb (February 12, 2020). "It's my birthday.I would truly appreciate a happy from y'all, if y'all can. Also, I'm fucking old. :)" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Bissell, Tom (November 3, 2008). "The Grammar of Fun". The New Yorker. Condé Nast. Archived from the original on December 24, 2014. Retrieved December 24, 2014.
  3. ^ Ashcraft, Brian (April 8, 2010). "Why We Call Him Dude Huge". Kotaku. Archived from the original on September 17, 2012. Retrieved October 3, 2012.
  4. ^ Crecente, Brian. "Their future is Epic: The evolution of a gaming giant". Polygon. Retrieved August 22, 2018.
  5. ^ Gaudiosi, John (July 21, 2014). "Interview: Legendary designer Cliff Bleszinski discusses the future of free-to-play shooters". PC World. International Data Group. Archived from the original on October 15, 2014. Retrieved October 9, 2014.
  6. ^ a b Freeman, Will (December 5, 2011). "FAQ: Cliff Bleszinski". Develop. Retrieved July 21, 2017.
  7. ^ a b "Cliff Blezinski Reddit AMA (transcript)". September 14, 2012. Archived from the original on February 5, 2016. Retrieved July 21, 2017.
  8. ^ a b c d e Edwards, Benj (May 25, 2009). "From The Past To The Future: Tim Sweeney Talks (page 8)". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on July 29, 2017. Retrieved July 21, 2017.
  9. ^ a b Fahs, Travis (January 9, 2009). "...And All That Jazz". IGN. Archived from the original on August 24, 2017. Retrieved August 23, 2017.
  10. ^ a b Bleszinski, Cliff (March 26, 2015). "The Summer That Launched My Career". Control500. Archived from the original on July 6, 2017. Retrieved July 21, 2017.
  11. ^ a b Keighley, Geoffrey. "Blinded By Reality: The True Story Behind the Creation of Unreal". GameSpot. Archived from the original on May 19, 2001. Retrieved July 22, 2017.
  12. ^ a b Reinhart, Brandon (June 9, 2000). "Postmortem: Epic Games' Unreal Tournament". Gamasutra. UBM plc. Archived from the original on October 17, 2016. Retrieved October 11, 2016.
  13. ^ a b c d e PC Gamer. "Meet The Next Game Gods". PC Gamer. Vol. 7, no. November 2000. Future plc. pp. 1, 70 & 84.
  14. ^ "Microsoft Studios acquires rights to Gears of War franchise". Xbox Wire. January 27, 2014. Archived from the original on September 6, 2017. Retrieved September 6, 2017.
  15. ^ Dobson, Jason (March 12, 2007). "Post-GDC: Cliff Bleszinski Says Iteration Won Gears of War". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on January 26, 2016. Retrieved April 21, 2016.
  16. ^ McGarvey, Sterling (March 8, 2007). "Everything You Wanted to Know About Gears of War..." GameSpy. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved September 6, 2017.
  17. ^ Thorsen, Tor (March 12, 2007). "GDC 07: Cliffy B disassembles Gears, mentions sequel". GameSpot. Archived from the original on March 21, 2014. Retrieved September 6, 2017.
  18. ^ "IGN - 40. Cliff Bleszinski". IGN. Archived from the original on April 20, 2014. Retrieved November 13, 2023.
  19. ^ Epic Games (October 3, 2012). "Cliff Bleszinski Departs Epic". Epic Games Community. Epic Games. Archived from the original on October 4, 2012. Retrieved November 21, 2012.
  20. ^ Makuch, Eddie (October 3, 2012). "Cliff Bleszinski out at Epic Games". GameSpot. Archived from the original on December 26, 2013. Retrieved October 8, 2012.
  21. ^ Makedonski, Brett (September 1, 2015). "Cliff Bleszinski says he retired because everyone was too jaded". Destructoid. Archived from the original on August 17, 2016. Retrieved July 1, 2017.
  22. ^ Matulef, Jeffrey (June 30, 2014). "Cliff Bleszinski says he's "coming out of retirement"". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on August 2, 2017. Retrieved July 1, 2017.
  23. ^ Campbell, Evan (July 8, 2014). "Gear of War Designer Cliff Bleszinski announces F2P shooter BlueStreak". IGN. Archived from the original on July 27, 2014. Retrieved July 28, 2014.
  24. ^ Corriea, Alexa Ray (July 4, 2014). "Cliff Bleszinski creates Boss Key game studio with Guerrilla Games co-founder". Polygon. Vox Media. Archived from the original on August 8, 2014. Retrieved July 31, 2014.
  25. ^ Webster, Andrew (August 26, 2015). "LawBreakers is the next game from Gears designer Cliff Bleszinski". The Verge. Archived from the original on August 2, 2017. Retrieved August 1, 2017.
  26. ^ Makuch, Eddie (May 10, 2016). "Gears of War Designer Cliff Bleszinski Invests in New Crowdfunding Site Fig". GameSpot. Archived from the original on August 23, 2017. Retrieved August 23, 2017.
  27. ^ Bleszinski, Cliff. "A statement". Twitter. Retrieved May 14, 2018.
  28. ^ Makuch, Eddie (July 7, 2019). "What's Cliff Bleszinski, The Creator Of Gears Of War, Up To These Days? A Lot". GameSpot. Retrieved July 7, 2019.
  29. ^ Bleszinski, Cliff (February 5, 2020). "Offer Still Stands To Consult On The Gears Franchise, Microsoft". Twitter. Retrieved February 7, 2020.
  30. ^ Teuton, Christopher (November 1, 2022). "Cliff Bleszinski Interview: Control Freak". Screen Rant. Retrieved November 14, 2022.
  31. ^ Young, Rory (April 18, 2023). "Former Gears of War Lead Cliff Bleszinski Announces First Comic Book". ComicBook.com. Retrieved April 20, 2023.
  32. ^ Kumpan, Sean (March 12, 2013). "EL337 Level: Interview with Lauren Bleszinski". PS Home Gazette. Archived from the original on March 15, 2013. Retrieved October 9, 2014.
  33. ^ Sarkar, Samit (December 11, 2013). "Cliff Bleszinski wants to make a first-person arena shooter on PC". Polygon. Archived from the original on July 31, 2017. Retrieved July 23, 2017.
  34. ^ a b Jones, George. "Keepin' It Unreal". Computer Gaming World. No. 233. Ziff Davis. p. 118. Retrieved August 25, 2017.
  35. ^ Totilo, Stephen (May 21, 2008). "'Gears of War' Designer Cliff Bleszinski Done With The 'CliffyB' Moniker". MTV Multiplayer. Archived from the original on September 15, 2008. Retrieved January 4, 2018.
  36. ^ High Score. Netflix. August 19, 2020. Retrieved September 17, 2024.
  37. ^ Sheffield, Brandon (October 21, 2005). "Gearing Up for Next-Gen: Cliff Bleszinski Chats About The Epic Future". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on July 31, 2017. Retrieved June 14, 2017.
  38. ^ Suellentrop, Chris (May 22, 2017). "Cliff Bleszinski on 'Lawbreakers', 'Overwatch' and Feeling Like a Disney Princess". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on July 29, 2017. Retrieved July 21, 2017.
  39. ^ Berghammer, Billy (August 18, 2004). "AU: The Cliffy B Interview". Game Informer. Archived from the original on August 19, 2004. Retrieved June 14, 2017.
  40. ^ Doscher, Megan (August 7, 1998). "A Web Contest Proves There Is More Than One Way to Scan a Cat". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved November 9, 2021.
  41. ^ Wired (April 24, 2007). "The 2007 Rave Awards". Wired. Archived from the original on August 24, 2017. Retrieved August 24, 2017.
  42. ^ Butts, Steve (April 12, 2010). "Gears Of War 3 On Jimmy Fallon". IGN. Archived from the original on October 14, 2014. Retrieved October 9, 2014.
  43. ^ Narcisse, Evan (April 13, 2010). "The Techland Interview: Cliff Bleszinski, Part 1". Time. Archived from the original on October 31, 2014. Retrieved October 9, 2014.
  44. ^ Gaudiosi, John (July 22, 2014). "From Gears of War to Beers – Cliffy B Opens a Restaurant". Men's Journal. Retrieved September 2, 2020.
  45. ^ Weigl, Andrea (July 17, 2015). "Raleigh Beer Garden to open Tuesday". The News & Observer. The McClatchy Company. Archived from the original on July 19, 2015. Retrieved July 20, 2015.
  46. ^ "Games: Unreal Tournament 2003". Nvidia. Archived from the original on August 23, 2017. Retrieved August 23, 2017.
  47. ^ Official Xbox Magazine. "CliffyB Interview" (PDF). Official Xbox Magazine. No. 32. p. 16. Archived from the original on August 2, 2016. Retrieved August 25, 2017.
  48. ^ Xbox Gazette (June 2006). "Interview with Cliff Bleszinski – Lead Designer on Gears of War". Xbox Gazette. Archived from the original on September 6, 2017. Retrieved August 24, 2017.
  49. ^ Bramwell, Tom (December 21, 2009). "Bleszinski working on "awesome s***"". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on August 25, 2017. Retrieved August 25, 2017.
  50. ^ Brown, David (February 18, 2011). "Bulletstorm developer interview: Cliff Bleszinski". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on October 16, 2014. Retrieved October 9, 2014.
  51. ^ Hall, Charlie (July 11, 2014). "Cliff Bleszinski's next game level is being made in Poland right now". Polygon. Vox Media. Archived from the original on July 16, 2014. Retrieved July 15, 2014.
  52. ^ Espineli, Matt; Butterworth, Scott (March 15, 2017). "Cliff Bleszinski Talks Making Medics And Inception-Style Hallways In LawBreakers". GameSpot. Archived from the original on August 25, 2017. Retrieved August 25, 2017.
  53. ^ Donnelly, Joe (April 9, 2018). "Radical Heights is Boss Key's next game—a free-to-play battle royale set in a 'futuristic '80s world'". PC Gamer. Retrieved April 9, 2018.
  54. ^ jgaudiosi (September 26, 2006). ""Stay Alive" Hits DVD". videogames.typepad. Archived from the original on August 8, 2014. Retrieved August 3, 2014.
  55. ^ "WARREN SPECTOR TRIBUTE with Cliff Bleszinski". YouTube. March 19, 2012. Retrieved August 8, 2012.
  56. ^ "SAKAGUCHI'S FINAL FANTASY". YouTube. March 6, 2015. Retrieved March 6, 2015.
  57. ^ "Jake and Amir: The Hot Date presented by Gears of War 3". YouTube. August 17, 2011. Retrieved November 25, 2016.
  58. ^ "Sonic For Hire – Gears of War". YouTube. Retrieved January 5, 2013.
  59. ^ "Class in session! Video Game High School 2 Ep. 1 is live". Destructoid. July 26, 2013. Archived from the original on October 26, 2014.
  60. ^ Makedonski, Brett (March 25, 2014). "Cliffy B chooses you to die in this Pokémon rap". Destructoid. Archived from the original on March 26, 2014. Retrieved March 26, 2014.
  61. ^ Siegel, Tatiana (June 17, 2014). "Zach Braff-Produced Doc 'Video Games: The Movie' Nabbed by Variance Films". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on August 24, 2017. Retrieved August 24, 2017.
  62. ^ "The Golden Sins Of Horror Games (The Jimquisition)". YouTube. October 31, 2015. Retrieved November 25, 2016.
  63. ^ Graser, Marc (June 26, 2008). "Wiseman suits up for 'Gears of War'". Variety. Archived from the original on August 24, 2017. Retrieved August 24, 2017.
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